Ballet Divertissement
by Cereduin
Summary: A well-known man about town with a penchant for the arts has been murdered. Miss Fisher has entangled herself into another adventure. But with a sick Dottie, things could get even more interesting. Besides, ballet and murder don't mix, do they?
1. The Overture

Scent of Blood

It was sticky, she realized. Glistening in the faint glow of the bedside lamp, the blood trailed from the open head wound to the floor. Beads of ruby-red blood formed a delicate web around the man's head. The woman stood, shaky at best, backing away from the corpse slumped on the floor. She couldn't remember what happened. The last night was hazy in her memory. It refused to come into the light of remembrance. Her hands managed to find the door. It opened without hesitation and she slipped out of the room, out of the house and into the night air.

x-X-x

D.I. Jack Robinson peered at the body, kneeling beside it to look more closely. At first glance it appeared straightforward enough. The body was positioned on the floor, slumped as if he had fallen due to the force of the blow to his head. Lost in his thoughts, Jack appeared not to notice an additional person enter the room. It was early in the day, the first thing on his desk this morning. He hated having to deal with cases of this nature first thing. Murder was never fun. He attempted to console himself with the fact that they had fingerprints all over the room. More likely than not, the killers prints would be amongst those they had found this morning. Despite this, he found his mind wandering to Miss Fisher. She would undoubtedly be here soon enough. Meddling in his murder inquiries. It was never straightforward with Phryne Fisher. Leave it to Miss Fisher to come along with a hair-brained theory to throw all the simplicity of investigation out the window. He was still kneeling beside the corpse when the women in question entered the room.

"You're late, Miss Fisher", Jack stood, turning to face Phryne. She swept into the room, appearing to take everything in at once. She never missed a thing despite not being able to stand still for more than a minute at a time. Miss Fisher was a whirlwind of constant motion and energy. This was something that never failed to amaze those around her, even Jack. It was easy to become taken with her after only meeting a few minutes prior.

"I'm never late. Everyone else is simply early", Phryne knelt next to the body, inches from where Jack had just been. "Blow to the head?" She queried, looking up at Jack, her head cocked slightly to the side.

"It would appear so" Jack took a few steps away from the body. Constable Hugh Collins hovered in the doorframe with his notebook. He coughed gently before beginning his primary report.

"I, eh, talked to the land lady downstairs sir. She said that the gentleman's name was –"

"Charles Rupert Davenport" announced Phryne. She stood, gaging the room and its modest contents.

"You know this man, Miss Fisher?" asked Collins. Thrown slightly off guard by this revelation, he looked to the Inspector questioningly. To be fair, he would never really get used to her constant announcements (or as he put them interruptions), no matter how useful the information.

"Knew. And yes, Constable, I knew OF the man" she stated simply. "He was well-known in Melbourne society as a patron of the fine arts".

"Ah, yes… Eh…" Collins consulted his notebook again, "She said that he had been here for the better part of a week. Paid in cash for the room, all in advance."

"Odd, considering he had a home not far from here. Quite the envy, I'm told" Phryne mused. She surveyed the room one last time before preparing to acquit it. Jack had half a mind to wait for her, but decided against it. He was better off getting back to the office to review the evidence and go over the statements with Collins then getting caught up with Miss Fisher. She would be in his office down at City South Constabulary in no time. To be honest, he rather enjoyed having her in his office. She seemed to bring a sort of fresh perspective to his investigations. Also, he hated to admit it, but she had a knack for uncovering the truth in the most unusual (and often illegal) ways. She pushed him to be better. Much as he disliked it, he had changed his perception of investigation.

"Collins, we'd best be getting back to the station" Jack said, walking briskly towards the young Constable. "Goodbye Miss Fisher". He gave a nod before turning away, ushering both the Constable and Miss Fisher out of the crime scene.

[A/N: Reviews are v. desirable. I have no idea exactly how this will play out, but you're more than welcome to come along for the ride! ]


	2. Act 1

Stepping into the tiny garret that constituted Dorothy Williams' living quarters, Mr. Butler heard the young assistant before he saw her. Unfortunately for Dot, she had caught a terrible cold and had not gotten over it yet. An extremely pitiful looking Dot peaked up from the mass of blankets.

"Dorothy, I've brought you some soup" Mr. Butler said gently, setting the tray on the small nightstand next to the bed. He looked at Dot, appraising her current state and trying to decide if he should tell her about the latest case Miss Fisher had taken on. Judging by the red nose and crumpled handkerchieves that littered the bed in addition to the unfinished handiwork, he decided against it. Better to let her rest than trying to run all over Melbourne keeping up with Miss Fisher.

"Thank you Mr. Butler" Dot said, sounding very stuffy and quite childlike. She sat up in the bed, straitening the coverlet.

"Now, you just stay in bed and rest up. I'll be back to check up on you in an hour or so" Mr. Butler smiled at his patient before leaving the room.

x-X-x

Jack studied the slim file that made up the investigation, as it currently stood. There wasn't much to go on at the present. The parents of the deceased were no longer living and he was estranged with his only other living relation, his older brother. Collins was trying to track him down at the moment, but judging from the amount of sighing and grunts coming from the front office, he wasn't having much luck. Just as well, he thought. They could potentially rule out the brother if they couldn't find him. For all he knew, the brother was dead as well. According to Phryne, the dead man knew more then half the town, so why was there so little information about him? If he truly was a great patron of the arts, as he claimed, then surely it wouldn't be too difficult to track down known associates. He leaned back in his chair, deep in thought.

"Collins" The constable strode into Jack's office, coming to a stop just inside the doorway.

"Yes, Sir?"

"Any luck tracking down Mr. Davenport's brother?"

"No Sir. I have been tracing his movements as best I can, but I'm having trouble getting his last known address. Seems he didn't leave a forwarding address when he last moved."

"Well, I want you to track down as many people who knew the deceased as possible. Maybe we'll have better luck getting information from them. The brother can wait for the time being" Jack handed him the file containing everything they had on the deceased so far.

"Very good, Sir." Hugh retraced his steps back to the front desk and began to flick through the file, trying to find a name to start with. Just as he lifted the phone from its cradle, Miss Fisher blazed into the police station, heading straight for Jack Robinson's office towards the back. In the early days, Hugh would have attempted to detain Miss Fisher, announce her presence to the inspector, however now he usually just let her go. She rarely listened to his feeble protests if the inspector was busy with something. Better just to let her go.

Phryne Fisher was on fire. She had discovered something amongst her papers that would help this investigation right along. In fact, she was sure that neither the constable nor the inspector had this particular piece of information regarding the dead man. Phryne marched into the City South police station and headed straight for Jack's office. She swung the door open and put on her best smile.

"I've found something, Jack" She said with a cheeky grin and leisurely draped her slim body in the chair opposite the inspector.

"Have you now" asked Jack, trying to keep the smile from coming to his lips. She always found something, although Jack didn't always want to know how she found it. Her information was usually good. She had a way of getting people to talk to her, inviting them to tell her things, even a hardened detective inspector like himself. One day that would inevitably come to bite him. Until then, he would just have to live with the danger.

"Of course, I have. As it so happens, I recently discovered that Mr. Davenport had made a considerable donation to the Palais Theatre. According to my source, he wanted it to house his dance troupe. Charles Davenport loved his dancers."

"Dancers. Just ballet or…" he trailed off. Jack looked skeptically at Phryne. He liked dance, but he couldn't help remember the last time he had seen Phryne dance. The feathers really left little to the imagination, more decoration than costume. Although the movements in the number didn't do anything to help that image. He firmly reigned his imagination in, this was better left to being off-the-clock.

"Well, not just ballet, all kinds of dance really. He was putting the finishing touches on his opening show for his troupe shortly before his— untimely demise" Phryne said, musingly.

"Hmm. Interesting. You think that maybe someone had it in for him from the art circle? Stealing the best dancers. That sort of thing?"

"The only problem with your theory is that no one locally knew about the recruitment. He was only looking for dancers trained elsewhere like at the London studios. My source says that he wanted to keep it a surprise until he had a place to debut."

"Your source wouldn't happen to be working for Mr. Davenport while he was alive, now would they, Miss Fisher?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I like to keep my sources confidential." Phryne gave him the look that signaled the end of that line of enquiry with a small wink. "Besides, you should be happy I tell you these things. Anyway, I've set up a meeting with the current manager of the Palais. We can get there in fifteen minutes tops. Provided I'm driving."

"The Palais is at least thirty minutes away on a fair day. "

"And that's why I'm driving. It's not like you're going to need the police car." She gave him that smile. The smile reserved for making him change his mind and let her get her own way. Damn you, Miss Fisher, he muttered to himself.

"Fine." He sighed, resigned to his rather dubious car trip. "Collins!"

"Uh, Sir?" Collins poked his head into the office, carrying the file with him.

"Miss Fisher and I are going to speak with the manager of the theater that Mr. Davenport was trying to buy a stake in. We'll be back later."

"Yes, Sir." He turned back to his station.

"Collins."

"Yes?"

"I'll be needing that file on my desk by the end of the day with a complete report of your findings."

"Not a problem Sir. I'm almost finished." He scurried back to his place at the front desk and began scribbling furiously. Jack rose from behind the desk, gathered his overcoat and made his way to the door. Phryne stood, following closely behind him. She never understood why, but she felt the need to stand extra close when the inspector was around. Maybe it was the way that he made her feel safe, no matter the situation. Perhaps, it was her imagination. She had been accused of possessing an overactive imagination more than once. Besides keeping her mind occupied and having an insatiable curiosity, Jack Robison was one of the main reasons she kept her sleuthing business open. It wasn't often that Phryne got to verbally spar with an attractive man and put away criminals in the process. They had fun together, something she suspected that the handsome inspector wouldn't ready admit to. One day, she'd get him to admit all. One day.

[A/N: Hope you liked this next installment of Ballet Divertissement. Please leave feedback, it really helps me out! ]


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